Yesterday, I came home from work to discover a healthy amount of frogspawn in my pond! Now I can’t claim to have actually seen a frog this year but my wife clocked one yesterday.
Though I did see some newts (I’ll get back to frogs) prior to a big freeze about six weeks ago, there’s been little activity since. Bar one sun soaked week, it has been pretty cold. I’m hoping that as it gets warmer (Mar-Jun is breeding season), there’ll be more newt sightings. Last year, there was a crazy amount of juvenile newts. I’d never really noticed baby ones before but there were lots… and I mean lots!
When I saw frogspawn in my pond a year ago, I thought that I’d go back the following day and put it to one side. By the time I returned it had gone, presumably devoured by the newts. This time I took the spawn from the pond (With good intentions) but I’ve decided to put it back! My research suggests that frogs eat young newts and I don’t want an increased frog population to have a long term negative effect on newt numbers.
Frogs are welcome, but I really love observing my newts. I’ve always tried to have as natural pond as possible… I mean as natural as a piece of plastic in a residential area can be! Therefore I’m not really comfortable with ‘managing’ the population. I’d rather just let nature take its course!
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